whatever the heart fumbles in the dark
by CherryBerry12
Summary: In which the author refuses to believe Itachi "Big Brother Complex" Uchiha would let his little brother join Orochimaru without having some kind of plan in place, and Karin finds herself falling in love with a different Uchiha. Itachi/Karin. Light smut.
1. Chapter 1

This is a (kinda) rewrite of another fic I've been writing: same premise, but it's going in a completely different direction, which has been extra fun to write! Basically, I wanted to know: what would happen if, instead of meeting Sasuke during the chunin exams and falling in love with him, Karin meets Itachi instead?

Even though she and Itachi are the same age here, my characterization is based off of how we see her in episode 431, and as we move forward in time she'll become more like the Karin we all know (and love dearly!).

Title taken from WCW's "The Ivy Crown"

* * *

Itachi meets his informant at least once a month, discreetly excusing himself from Kisame's company in order to sneak off towards sleepy villages and lonely civilian towns.

It's a large continent, a broad and messy patchwork of nations, and there are enough dilapidated inns and hole-in-the-wall restaurants where a man might go to hold a discrete conversation, where any person might head to be quickly overlooked.

To meet too often would invite undue risk, and the information his informant supplies is rarely so time-sensitive that it cannot wait until their next meeting, and so when Itachi feels it is time to meet again he will send a handwritten note to her through one of his crows who have since committed her face to memory. He gives her a vague idea of where he'll be and roughly how long he will remain, and the rest he leaves to fate; she will either sense his chakra and come to him, or another of his crows will come upon her and show her the way to where he is staying.

Somehow, in the course of his missions and her errands, his path and her path will bear close enough that they will overlap for a few short hours before they diverge again and she leaves to watch over her prison, and he returns to Kisame.

Though he trusts her enough to continue to meet with her, Itachi has never been the sort to reveal too much of himself, and he is not such a fool that he would let any person other than Kisame know of his missions too far in advance.

("Don't you trust me, Itachi?" she asks him once, grinning so fiercely that he does not bother to dignify her with an answer.)

He cannot eliminate the risk entirely, but Itachi does not intend to live long enough for Karin to betray him in a way that will matter.

.

He would just like to know that Sasuke is safe.

The Third Hokage dies, and an era of Konoha politics begins a slow but long overdue trudge into history.

Itachi is not particularly sad to see it go.

It leaves the village in an uncertain state, but more importantly it leaves Sasuke's fate in an uncertain state, and within minutes of hearing the news he is on the road moving towards Konoha, reentering the orbit of his destiny.

There is a blood-bond between him and Sasuke, a connection no amount of distance or time will ever be able to sever, but when Sasuke stands at the end of a hallway with death in his eyes, lightning sparking in his palm, Itachi cannot help but notice how much he has missed in five years' time, how much his brother has grown in his absence.

He tests Sasuke's abilities and finds Sasuke has not yet grown enough.

Itachi is ever mindful of Kisame's eyes and the confusion of their loyalties, and he finds he has no choice but to walk away from Sasuke again, to leave him slumped and unconscious against the wall of the inn.

He can do little more than pray he has left Sasuke with enough motivation to push him further in his training, and enough hatred to allow Sasuke to eventually cross whatever final threshold remains between him and Itachi's death.

(Five years apart, and yet Sasuke still does not hesitate to name him: Brother!)

Itachi believes he has foreseen all possible interferences, and yet he does not anticipate Orochimaru's involvement in this. He does not appreciateOrochimaru's involvement and yet he has no choice but to allow it, knowing there is a careful balance to be maintained between his desire to interfere and the danger such interference might pose to Sasuke. The questions it might prompt Sasuke to ask.

Itachi will not, however, allow it freely.

To tolerate Sasuke's acquaintance with someone so dangerous without a check in place would be irreparably careless of him. He trusted the Third Hokage out of necessity, and he trusts Danzo even less. Orochimaru is worse still, is capricious and cruel and, until Karin comes along, Itachi has only half-clues of what happens in Otogakure.

His imagination becomes unusually creative in the absence of more concrete information.

.

He and she first cross paths in a bar in the Land of Waves, a seedy, unpleasant place where he and Kisame are sent to spy on the unfaithful husband of a noblewoman.

It has been three weeks since Sasori remarked offhandedly that Orochimaru had found himself a new apprentice, and Itachi cannot help but be the slightest bit distracted.

From the moment of Sasuke's birth their fates had been bound as one: for the first time Itachi and Kisame are able to directly walk into the Land of Waves and he does not fail to notice they pass over the Great Naruto Bridge. It is still somewhat of a work in progress, workers in civilian clothes on both ends applying fresh coats of paint to blocked-off areas, but the concrete is firm under Itachi's sandals and something about that is a minor comfort.

Sasuke is an entire continent away, and yet reminders of him are inescapable.

Kisame leaves to track the man, and Itachi slips into the first bar he finds to watch for the man's mistress, disregarding the low likelihood of her appearance.

He is on his third hour of waiting when he sees a red-headed woman enter and approach the bar. She holds her cloak tight in spite of the heat and avoids his and every other man's eyes, scrunching her nose at the humid smell of the sea that leaks into the bar through its open windows.

She is not the woman he has been waiting for, and yet something about her is still instantly recognizable to him: the suspicious, jerky way her eyes dart around the room, the too-quick grab she makes for the kunai hidden up her sleeve when another patron accidentally bumps into her.

(A shade of red he swears he has seen some place before—)

The woman is horribly out of place in a bar mostly patronized by weather-beaten fishermen, scarred and tattooed sell-swords, and yet Itachi supposes he does not fit in much better.

Her voice trembles when she orders a glass of plum wine and a glass of water, and the bartender (without asking for identification, Itachi notes) turns to pour the drinks with an amused snort. She fumbles a few notes out of her pocket and scurries to an isolated corner booth to drink alone, frequently looking up as if she were expecting someone.

Itachi makes several quick assumptions about her, and all of them prove to be true over time.

There is a hungry look in her eyes that only ever seems to manifest in followers of Orochimaru, either because Orochimaru intentionally exploits weak, desperate children, or because he intentionally pits them against each other.

Like many of Orochimaru's schemes it is brutish and implausibly cruel but ultimately lacking in imagination. The loyalty he cultivates is rooted in loneliness, in displacement. He breeds in his followers an easily exploitable vulnerability, a hunger for validation, encouragement.

It is not even loyalty exactly but aimlessness coupled with a willingness to grasp whatever hand is extended.

(And now Sasuke is one of them, and whose hands will he grasp?)

Itachi slips into the chair opposite the girl, and he isn't quite as surprised as he should be when she appears to recognize him too. Her back goes ramrod straight when her eyes meet Sharingan and she reflexively scoots her chair back from him as if she means to run.

He holds up one hand to stop her.

"Stay," he commands, and she's familiar enough with taking orders that she does.

The ongoing feud between him and Orochimaru had been painfully one-sided before Sasuke became involved; he cares very little about what Orochimaru does or who he associates with, though he hears enough from other Akatsuki to know Orochimaru still smarts from the loss of his hand years ago.

Orochimaru's near-legendary dislike of him gives Itachi a very believable excuse to seek out an informant among his followers, an excuse that places little if any scrutiny upon his relationship to Sasuke.

He says very little about his goals but tells the girl there is no one else who could help him in the way she might and her eyes go impossibly wide behind her glasses, any misgivings she might have had replaced by starry idealism, fairy tale imaginings he knows carry greater strength than almost any of his genjutsu.

(Had he not been told that once as well? That he was exceptional, wise beyond his years? That there were none of his clansmen who could fight as he did, none so capable of bringing peace to the village?)

It is cruel but the world itself is cruel, and whatever lies he tells to a lonely woman in glasses are not capable of damning him more than he has already damned himself.

"Are you interested?" he asks, and she startles as if she hadn't expected the conversation to turn back to her.

She opens her mouth to speak but is unable to say anything, seems to be reaching for words that are beyond her grasp. Her face flushes and she babbles something incomprehensible, one hand coming up to adjust her glasses, tucking a strand of dark-red hair behind her ear.

"I—I mean, can I, uh, do you mind if I—" Her other hand taps the rim of her glass of water before falling flat on the table. "Just for a moment I want to—" and she reaches her hands towards his and—

Her grip is crushing, enormously unpleasant, and yet he understands it is necessary that he offer something Orochimaru cannot, that her assessment of his offer will include whatever bond, imagined or otherwise, Karin can construe between them.

Itachi breathes, and allows it to happen.

He does not like it, and yet he is so unused to being touched casually that he is unable to turn his mind away from it, unable to ignore the comparative softness of her hands, the lack of calluses or scars or a single chip or crack in her nails.

They are not shinobi's hands; whatever use Orochimaru has for her, she is most certainly not a combatant. Her unusual paleness marks her as a lab assistant, someone who sees very little time outside.

She has not yet asked anything of him or Sasuke or the Akatsuki, and he is certain she could not be a spy, either.

Karin hazards a quick glance at him before skittishly dropping her gaze again and squeezing her eyes shut, taking in a deep breath.

In another context, he might have believed she was attempting to pray.

He waits a moment and she finally exhales, her shoulders drooping with released tension. Her iron-tight grip on his hand loosens, and it's somehow more intimate, even more unpleasant than it was originally.

She looks up and attempts a lopsided smile, a close-lipped twist of her lips that refuses to commit entirely to any kind of happiness. "I like how you feel," she confesses, and Itachi jerks his hands out of her grip.

He absolutely does _not_ like that and he tells her so, warns her not to say such things. (Why would she _say_ such a thing?)

Karin flinches and pulls her own hands back but, thankfully, does not leave. She hangs her head instead and answers with a muted okay.

He sighs.

At the very least, she is obedient, and were it not for that he would not bother dealing with her, would not risk negotiating terms with someone whose will he could not easily bend under his own.

All he needs is information, and he does not exactly need someone of any real importance to gather it for him.

He assumes that by leaving her under Orochimaru's thumb she will simply remain this way, that any confidence she manages to build will almost immediately be torn down by the other denizens of Otogakure.

He is wrong.

.

Sasuke is not happy, but he is flourishing, Karin tells him. He is training, rarely associates with anyone else under Orochimaru's command, rarely speaks except to issue commands.

Curiosity, a former comrade of his once said, is a wasting disease.

Karin mentions offhandedly that Sasuke and someone named Suigetsu had gotten into a fight and Itachi is infected by the desire to know more: who this Suigetsu is, what his loyalties are, how great of a danger he might pose to Sasuke.

There is only so much he can ask without raising suspicions, however, and so to ease his suffering he invites Karin to stay longer, encourages her to rant and vent with the hope that she will unintentionally answer more of his questions. She gleefully accepts, is rather easily misled, and for a few months Itachi finds their arrangement working rather well.

He is not entirely sure what to expect but he is pleasantly surprised by Karin; she lacks impartiality or organization but she supplies him with a wealth of information, recounts every detail she can recall, regardless of its importance. He learns a good deal about the layout of Otogakure, suffers through her explaining the various disadvantages to living underground.

For all of her anxious silence before Karin talks a good deal when she is asked to: she'll drop down onto the hotel bed before stumbling over several stories, adding any missing thoughts as they come to her, then tracing back through them again just to add insignificant points she missed the first or second time, recalling a person she had forgotten, connecting some incident to another.

He does not particularly care, and so he later recalls her descriptions of people and places in shades of grey, only able to pull from a small scattering of details that manage to make it past his indifference.

Karin adds a few words about the experiments she helps with, seems to purposely gloss over her exact role in them, and Itachi does not care enough to press her on these matters.

Soon after, however, he arranges a meeting with her as he's moving through the Land of Fire and their proximity to Konoha prompts him to immediately steer them both towards an inn, somewhere secluded they can stay for a few hours where he won't have to worry about being seen.

Karin is unusually skittish, pressing close to him when they walk, one hand locked around his sleeve and weighing him down as if she were a child and not a woman his own age.

He is unused to walking with someone so close to him but not, he recalls, entirely unfamiliar with it either—

(_Brother_, and an incessant, needy tugging at his elbow, _are you going to help me train today…?_)

It sets him off balance, and he shrugs off her grip.

"Do not cling to me," he warns. She obeys, but still stands closer to him than is acceptable, continues to cast baleful looks at him until he shoots her a warning glance.

She has not yet said anything and her silence is concerning, an almost certain sign that something is wrong, and his immediate thought is that Sasuke may be in danger, that she has uncovered some danger and is too afraid to share it. He ushers her into a room and Karin does not let out so much as a peep until he closes and locks the door behind them.

He waits a moment, gives her time to collect her thoughts because if there is something she's afraid to tell him it is likely something important, and the longer she delays the less time he will have to fix it.

She shifts from one leg to the other, holding one forearm protectively over her chest. Still says nothing, does not even look directly at him, and instead stares down at the wooden floors, at her own shoes. Takes a deep, shuddering breath, but says nothing.

A moment passes; a door down the hall slams, Karin's arm tighten around her.

Eventually he snaps and tells her to spit it out, to speak already, because he has no time for her dramatics if Sasuke is in need of help.

Karin visibly flinches and shrinks further into herself, her hair hiding her face when she bows her head.

"Karin—," but he doesn't get a chance to finish. Karin takes a deep breath and steps towards him, reaches out to him, tugging at the front of his shirt again, trying to pull him closer to her.

He does not have _time_ for this.

He pushes her away.

Karin isn't the least rebuffed, stumbles back and, inexplicably, begins to frantically undress. Her hands tremble when she unzips her jacket, shaking so bad it takes several tugs before the zipper comes undone, and then she throws it off, her mesh undergarment following shortly after.

"Karin, you are—"

She removes her glasses and gives him a wild-eyed look, practically hyperventilating when she says, "Please."

(_Please_? Who is she that she believes _please_, of all things, would move him? Who is she to believe he, of all people, might be swayed by _please_?)

"Please," she says again, and his eyesight is not yet so deteriorated that he does not notice the bright-pink sets of teeth-marks that trail up her forearms, the air of desperation that clings to her stronger than the perfume she wears. How she can somehow be both flushed and sickly pale, full of both passion and terror, need and fear.

It is, admittedly, something he does not understand in the slightest and he is not entirely sure how to respond.

"I just… Just this once…" she stammers, hugging her arms to herself defensively. She's so unlike the Karin she will become that, thinking back on it, Itachi struggles to think of them as the same person.

The Karin she will become would not beg, would not watch him with wide, terrified eyes and of course his first instinct is to say no, to refuse her, to immediately leave.

He does not.

This is the first time he's seen her disrobe and he notices there are marks on her that are not nearly as fresh, that there are pearly impressions of teeth around her shoulders and her collar bones, ones that trail below the arms that cover her breasts and Itachi stops himself from peering any lower. He does not, in that moment, have the curiosity to spare on her.

(There is a question he never poses, and one that is never answered.)

"You… You don't need to do anything. I can… I can do it myself."

He is not entirely certain what she means to do until Karin approaches him and sets her hands against his chest. Her touch is light enough that she barely touches him, barely presses hard enough for him to feel her hands through the material of his shirt.

He immediately does not like it.

"_Please_," she begs, and she grows bolder, placing her hands flat against his chest, sucking in a breath as if such a small act of physical contact was truly that remarkable to her.

The Karin she will become would never be so easily impressed, would not be caught staring awestruck at him without leveling some strange insult at him.

She has not yet become that Karin, however, and he is just as much a different version of himself.

"This is a waste of my time," he tells her, looking down at her hands disdainfully. "I do not appreciate you wasting my time."

She hiccups and he braces himself for the headache, the inconvenience of dealing with her sloppy emotions. She will cry, exhaust herself, and then he'll finally get to hear what she's learned about Sasuke, if anything.

This is not what happens.

Karin flushes, has the sense to be embarrassed by his reprimand but instead of apologizing and allowing them both to move on from it she pushes him away. "Fine then!" she snaps. There's a minor slip in her anger, a moment where she looks down at her outstretched hands and seems surprised by her own emotions.

"You know what?" Karin asks, and whatever she means, he most certainly does not know.

She sniffs, stubbornly wipes at the corner of her eye. "I don't even like you that much. I mean, why would I? You're…" She stops, seems to be grasping for a word, then hisses, "You're an _idiot_. This is a waste of my time."

Karin finally turns away, bends down and begins to collect her clothes, and Itachi finds her sudden temper both alarming and confounding enough that he does not interrupt her tirade.

Her hands shake, but no longer with fear. "_You_ are wasting _my_ time, you know!" she repeats. She begins to redress and continues, "You're just going to have to find someone else's time to waste, because I've got much better things to do than hang around some… some crummy inn and talk about nothing but work for two hours before you… before you run out of here like you don't even _like_ me!"

—and that alarms him.

His meetings with Karin have been an indulgence, a temptation to spy on Sasuke's wellbeing he had resisted for five years, but a temptation he has no desire to resist again.

If something were to happen to Sasuke, Itachi will have no means of knowing.

("Sasuke?" She'd shrugged. "He and Orochimaru are always together, doing who knows what.")

Karin huffs and turns to go and—

He stops her.

If she leaves, she may never come back and so he stops her, grabs her hand and spins her around and pulls her flush to him, one hand placed firmly against her back to keep her in place.

And he kisses her.

Her body is warm and her lips are warm and his nose bumps into hers when he leans in and he can't remember ever being so close to another person, not in years, and maybe if he had more than a second to think it over perhaps he'd have come up with a better solution but he _doesn't_, _can't_—

And so he kisses her.

Karin stiffens in his arms but does not struggle and he prays this is what she wants, that it's at least close enough to what she wants that it'll stop her from walking away and taking Sasuke with her.

Itachi has never kissed anyone before and so he cannot be sure if he's done it right, doesn't know if it lasts too long or if it's too short, if he's pressed too close to her or if he isn't holding her tight enough but it _works_. Karin relaxes, her hands once again reaching for his shirt, gripping it tightly in her hands, holding fast to him.

He kisses her, and Karin does not leave.

Itachi has no reference for kissing and so he counts down from ten before pulling away, his hand still pressed against her back.

Karin's eyes open slowly, flicker from his hand to his mouth to his eyes and she smiles. "You kissed me," she says, drawing the words out slowly, testing the feel of them. She takes in a deep breath then laughs in disbelief. She brings one hand to her mouth and seems almost unconscious of her grin, of the silly, absolutely foolish expression on her face.

"I… you liked that," she says, her voice small but somehow full of wonder, relief. "I could feel it…"

He doesn't understand what, if anything, Karin was able to feel but it seems to make her happy, and he won't contest that.

(He has lived so long divorced from his own pleasure that he does not bother to consider whether he did, in fact, enjoy it.)

.

"I'd leave for you," Karin whispers to him that night, her voice unusually neutral, exhausted. She lies on her back next to him in bed, staring at the cracks in the inn ceiling. There is at least half a foot of distance between them but Itachi still refuses to lie under the covers with her, to get any closer than necessary. He is fully clothed but Karin is only in her shorts and mesh shirt, a smattering of pink and faded pearl-colored marks fully on display.

(Later he will find the marks do go lower, farther, and Itachi will accept that Orochimaru's cruelty has never been known to make exceptions.)

They lie close enough that he can feel the heat from her body, can feel how the bed shifts under her when she pulls her knees back.

He does not consider if there was another, easier way to appease her—Itachi acts, and accepts the consequences of his actions. There is only the future for him now, and matters of regret and hindsight are ones he does not pay much mind.

"Just say the word and I'll do it—I'll help you kill him; I'll get whatever information you need. Just ask me. Anything you want me to do. I just—I hate it there. I can't stay there," and the tiniest sliver of emotion creeps back into her voice, a desperate whine.

Karin does not specify exactly who she means by _him_, but it seems a rather dangerous thought for her to explore.

Itachi says nothing, and she does not offer again.

* * *

**A/N: **HAPPY BIRTHDAY KARIN, LOVE YOU QUEEN.

i have SO many thoughts about this pairing? I mean, just from a construction standpoint, it makes WAY more sense that Karin, super-healing, lie-sensing, desperate-for-love Karin would be more compelling as someone in Itachi's orbit as opposed to Sasuke's and i am CONVINCED that is exactly why Karin never got to meet him in canon.

ANYWAY

pt. 2 is uhhh gonna be significantly less dark. sorry karin still love you

thanks to everyone who reads, leaves kudos, and comments! i love you!


	2. Chapter 2

Itachi is slow in arranging their next meeting. He waits nearly two months but Karin lingers in his thoughts like an unpleasant daydream, a presence that claws its way to the forefront of his mind even when he does his best to distract himself with menial tasks, unnecessary training.

There are only so many katas he can manage to perform before his curiosity outweighs his caution and he sends off several crows towards Otogakure, Karin's face impressed into their minds with a careful genjutsu. He constructs the shortest message possible: Iwa.

He writes no date and gives Karin no expectation of time, believing the uncertainty will motivate her to hurry faster.

He is more careful in approaching this next meeting, arriving in town and spending entire days waiting for Karin at a nearby tea shop. It is more crowded than it ought to be, but he refuses to go anywhere else and risk being trapped with Karin in close quarters again.

He waits, but does not entirely mind the wait; waiting gives him time to think, to turn over strategies in his mind and decide what it is he ought to do about Karin.

In choosing to pacify her, Itachi recognizes he has conceded leverage to her: she is not irreplaceable but now understands he does not want to replace her; she does not know her exact value but knows she possesses, in some form, information he finds valuable enough that he would have agreed to spend the night with her, however innocent it was.

From a shinobi's standpoint, it is enough. It puts her in a position where she can bargain or blackmail or solicit bribes from him.

Thankfully, he has days to think it over, days where he sits alone in the tea shop and thinks, occasionally watching the other patrons for any sign of a threat, though he is smart enough to not enter Iwa proper but to remain in one of the orbiting civilian towns.

Several days into his wait he is alone in the shop with a young couple, two civilian men who say very little Itachi can overhear but whose flirting is nonetheless obvious, legs that intertwine under the table, hands that make a game of inching towards each other. Long, knowing pauses where they say very little but trade suggestive smirks.

That is, he imagines, what Karin wants from him. That closeness, the intimacy.

One of the men reaches over with the spoon he'd been using to stir his tea and lightly taps his partner on the knuckles when he flags a waitress, ordering a bottle of sake for their table. The waitress speeds off and the man shakes his head "If you get too drunk now…" he says, his words trailing off into some innuendo, topped off with a wink.

Itachi does not know the particulars of Karin's story and they do not matter; with Orochimaru, they all bear the same markings: orphaned, disowned, discarded.

Unwanted.

It was exactly what he had counted on in approaching Karin, and yet he is forced to admit he underestimated the depth of her need, the nature of her interest.

Once, perhaps, she had been one of the children who only wanted attention, any form of affection. Children who languished in Orochimaru's underground caverns like browned and drooping plants, craving the sun of someone, anyone's interest. Now she is an adult, nearly his equal in age, and Itachi supposes it is only natural that those desires would age with her, however inconvenient it might be for himself.

When Karin does arrive, he's been waiting there for nearly a week and Itachi very deliberately turns so their two chairs are immediately opposite each other. He intends to use the table as a wedge, a barrier to keep Karin at bay.

She stumbles into the teahouse, the uneven layers of her hair caught in wind-troubled tangles. It's been a busier day at the cafe and Karin seems wary of this, smiling first at Itachi, then scanning over the numerous other customers, her expression quickly fading.

"Hey," Karin says when she heads over, a little drawn out, a little uncertain. She places her hands on the back of her chair and looks around again, worrying at her lip. "I missed—"

"You certainly took your time," he says instead.

Karin purses her lips.

She looks down, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, and then finally pulls out the chair and seats herself. "So the last time—"

"I want to pay you."

"… What?"

"For your services. I want to pay you," and Itachi is suddenly very grateful that she kept him waiting, that he had time in order to plot out what he might say to her. "I am going to pay you every time we meet. If you are diligent and invest wisely, in several years' time you will no longer require Orochimaru's support. You may, if you wish, find somewhere else you might choose to live. Somewhere more accommodating." For someone like Karin, money could mean a good number of things: protection. Safety. Independence.

For someone like Karin, who seem to only be a shinobi by virtue of misfortune, the choice should be easy to make.

She blinks, and then frowns. "I'm doing this because I love you."

He pauses. "You do not."

"Yes, I do. Clearly I do. I _know_ I—"

"You do not."

"I _do_, I—"

"I'm going to pay you, and—"

"No, you're not!" Karin bangs her first down on the table. Several patrons near them glance over, too polite to openly stare, and Karin self-consciously slouches, withering under their scrutiny.

"Excuse me?" He is not necessarily looking to scare her, but it is dangerous for them both if she feels too empowered. "I would suggest you consider the potential consequence of raising your voice to me."

Karin adjusts her glasses and then crosses her arms, scowling. "You're not going to pay me, so don't even bother trying."

He does try, though, continues to negotiate with her for what feels like hours, wracks his mind for other rewards he could offer but only manages to find a dozen and more other incentives that do not interest her in the slightest.

The tea shop empties, the door ringing as each patron and couple departs until it's just the two of them, sitting alone while the waitresses gossip in the back.

"Name a price," he says, watching a waitress look over at them and giggle. Inwardly, he groans.

Karin only laughs, and says, "I want you," without any hint of shame.

Karin is not much younger than he is but he sees in her a strong malleability, an aimlessness coupled with bare desire he believes he can easily deflect.

He is wrong.

He leaves the cafe with no agreement in place, but weeks pass and he finds himself sending out another crow, arranging another meeting with Karin.

Any money he attempts to slip into her hands mysteriously finds its way back into his cloak pockets, neatly folded and perfume scented. He invites her to dinner and Karin is gracious but entirely uninterested in the meal, knocks her knee against his and winks at him over the table, taps his chopsticks with her own, picks at his food when quite she visibly has more than enough of her own.

He offers to pay for her lodgings and—well, Itachi can't be too surprised by how that offer rebounds on him.

There seems to be nothing he can do but accept that Karin will not be bought.

He starts bringing her small trinkets he finds when he and Kisame travel and though it's symbolic it sets him at ease, assures him he's able to offer her something that is tangible and measurable.

(He buys her a bottle of perfume once and she cradles it in her hands as if it were a blessing, runs her thumb over the ridges in the glass and says, _No one has ever given me something like this before._)

.

"So Sasuke is your little brother…" Karin starts and then pauses, the words hanging in the air while he waits for her to complete her thought. "He's quiet like you are," she says instead.

"I don't suppose this is going somewhere," Itachi remarks, but of course he _is_ hoping it's going somewhere.

"Well," she says, a smile tugging at her lips. It's not one of her typical pointed, flirtatious smiles, but a soft one, a private happiness. "I knew you were related so… Well, I mean I tried to talk to him." Her lips press into a thin line. "He wasn't too interested in talking to anyone, though. Especially me. That's… I'm not much of anyone, but it's dangerous not to have friends there," an unspoken _I'd know_ held back.

"Orochimaru is a greater priority to me than Sasuke," he says dismissively, though he's curious enough to add, "I don't believe Sasuke has the same problem, given that he's Orochimaru's apprentice," because he doesn't exactly want to end the conversation, and maybe because he wants her to confirm what is mostly a presumption on his part.

Karin shoots him an odd look, scrutinizing him from behind her glasses as if he'd said something unusual. Itachi can't find anything wrong in what he's said, and Karin eventually shrugs. "From a strategic point of view, he'd still be better off making some allies beyond Orochimaru and Kabuto. I think I should at least try to get close to him. He's gonna need allies in Oto whether he wants them or not."

It's unlike her, a careful mix of clinical and cunning that seems new, something that he supposes ought to have developed eventually living where she lives.

"Like I said… I've been keeping an eye on him. Cause he's your brother and all. He doesn't say much but… I watch his face. When he's talking to people, or when Orochimaru is teaching him something. I have a feel for his reactions, and they're telling."

At some point, he realizes, Karin decided to drop the _Lord_ when she speaks of Orochimaru, and something about that makes it much easier to hear her talk about the man.

"He's going to kill Orochimaru," she announces, graven, and Itachi supposes to her it must be a surprise.

To him, there is no doubt in his mind that, once Orochimaru has outlived his usefulness, Sasuke would be quick in either incapacitating or disposing of him.

However, this is informed a good deal by his own relationship with Sasuke, personal experience and hours of thought Karin would naturally be unable to match.

Karin swallows and reaches up, adjusting her glasses. She gives him another careful look and then looks down, not quite guilty but… Conflicted, he'd say. "I think Sasuke could do it," and it's almost funny to Itachi, to see Karin present what seem to him very obvious facts as revolutionary.

But also… "You believe he's capable of it?"

"He's got privileged access to Orochimaru that no one else has. And… if he's anything like you…" Her eyes are soft again, so fond of him it almost seems childish. "I don't think he'll have a problem if he's careful and he waits. Which is why I think I should start getting close to him now, and start gaining his trust." She hesitates. "Kabuto told about… about you two. Why Sasuke is there. You're going to have to face him or Orochimaru eventually."

"Perhaps."

She lets out a hot breath, and Itachi finds it almost amusing. Karin has become a hardier version of herself: she's shed whatever remained of her initial shyness, discarded her deferential meekness so fast Itachi can't help but be concerned by it. Her spine fills not with steel but cement, an unyielding, firm confidence.

"You can't give me any more than that? What I'm saying is—one of them is probably going to kill the other before they get to you. This way, I can have a stake in either of their successes, and I can keep reporting back to you no matter who wins."

Itachi glances sidelong at her. "It seems to me you are overcomplicating a rather simple mission. I ask only that you report back to me on what Orochimaru has done; what you suggest now is in excess of that."

Karin smiles again, the same secret, soft one she'd used earlier. "Yeah. But I want to do whatever helps keep you safe."

He finds himself unable to reply to that.

Karin reaches one hand back to smooth down her loose hair, to comb her fingers through reddish strands and—Itachi finally remembers where he has seen that color before.

.

Of all Itachi's memories of his mother, this is one of the clearest: the relief on her face as she confessed to Kushina that Sasuke did not have the same _problems_ Itachi had as a baby.

Of course he had been immediately concerned because he had yet to find a metric by which he did not excel, and so he moved out of the living room doorway and pressed himself against the hallway wall, trying overhear as much as he could without being detected.

If he had some kind of problems, after all, it was only natural that he should seek to remedy them.

_Sasuke is just like a normal baby… He cries so much but he's so affectionate. He knew my voice from the first day, Kushina! Whenever I talk to him he smiles._ She paused, and he could imagine she was smiling too, the small, sweet, loving smile she had once only reserved for Kushina.

At least, until Sasuke had been born.

His mother continued. _Itachi was always such a stern baby. Even now he doesn't like to be touched. He…_ Itachi could hear her shift. _This was even before… before what Fugaku did, you understand. He was just… Like that._

It was striking, not because it was unexpected, but because it had touched on something even he, at five years old, had noticed—a way he felt disconnected from the world around him, somehow unable to blend in and immerse himself like other people could.

His mother, naturally, would be the greatest authority on her own child, and yet Kushina didn't seem to agree. _Itachi just takes his time, I think. Kakashi is like that too—he just isn't direct about it_, and, rather than hear his mother's response to that, Itachi chose to make his presence known, backing into the hallway as soft as he could before walking towards the kitchen, loud enough that they would hear him coming, that it would seem as if he'd just left his room.

Kushina had smiled and waved at him, flashing bright white teeth, sparkling grey eyes. _My little man!_ she'd said, beckoning him over.

And—her hair. Her ruby-red, curtain-like hair that fell over them both when Kushina pulled him into a hug, her pregnant belly putting him at an odd angle he tried his best to overcome. Kushina _liked_ him. Kushina understood him.

Kushina was willing to touch him as if she were completely unaware of his strangeness, as if she wasn't the least bit bothered by his problems.

_You're gonna be twice the big brother in a few weeks, Itachi! Isn't that so cool?_ Kushina flipped her hair over her shoulder and it seemed to him endless—hair that was so much longer than his, longer than his entire body.

He could understand why his mother loved her so much.

Those few weeks passed, but by the end of them Kushina was dead.

Kushina's death had changed his mother. In his young, childish mind there seemed to be a simple arithmetic to it: Kushina was gone, and Mother had one fewer friend. The long afternoons she'd spend alone with Kushina were suddenly empty, but painfully so.

Mother kept their lunch dates long after Kushina had died, sitting tall and stern at the kitchen table, staring down into her cup of tea but, somehow, not present.

"Sasuke will be different," he remembers her spitting at his father weeks after Kushina's death, her voice angry, insistent. He'd been walking down the hallway and overheard them, stood in front of the door and listened to the sound of their bed creaking and squeaking as his mother paced and sat, brooded and stood. In twelve years of memories Itachi can think of no time she had been more adamant: "We cannot make the same mistake twice. Sasuke _must_ be different."

He knows now, of course, that this was not meant to be taken personally.

.

His mother had been wrong, Itachi thinks, because there was never truly anything wrong with him. One would not call a hammer defective for its inability to float when its design included no such calculus.

Itachi was meant, from the moment of his birth, to become a shinobi, and shinobi did not need to be soft and affectionate or smile when their names were called. The shinobi code is abundantly clear: shinobi do _not_ show their emotions. A great shinobi is the master of his own emotions.

It does not mean Itachi is incapable of love, because how else could he explain what he has done for Sasuke? He knows, from his own experience, that he is capable of fear and guilt and horror and, rarely but certainly, that he is capable of feeling joy.

These capabilities, however, are not his purpose, and his ability to act in disregard of his own emotions is clear evidence of that.

Karin fails to realize this. Failed when they first met, failed when she stripped in front of him and begged _please_. Karin failed and continues to fail, looks to him with Kushina's undying faith in him, an unshakable belief that he is just taking his time. Indirect.

She becomes too comfortable around him, is once so emboldened that she reaches for the necklace he wears, intending, he later thinks, to grasp the thin links and tug him down to her height.

She's too quick about it; too slow to get the kiss she wanted, but fast enough that it alarms him, sets off the hair-trigger responses he's spent years cultivating. His body is not soft like hers is, not trained for pleasure or comfort and his reaction is immediate, reflexive.

His hand grabs her wrist and twists it until she lets out a yelp. He jabs her once in the chest with the other and Karin stumbles back onto the floor, red hair fanning out under her head like a bloodspill.

She lies there, momentarily stunned, and for a moment neither of them speak. Karin swallows and slowly pulls herself up into a sitting position, slumping forward protectively. She blinks, and it appears as though she's still trying to piece together what happened.

"You should not startle a shinobi," he tells her, and for a moment it feels good to justify it that way: Karin should know better. Karin should know how a shinobi should react, Karin should be used to the broken edges and live wires that make up a shinobi's body.

Itachi didn't even need to think about doing it; the response was automatic.

Karin must agree because she nods slowly, and her eyes flicker up to his for a moment. For once she doesn't hold his gaze, swallows and stares vacantly at his neck, his shoulders. She doesn't take her eyes off of him for a second. Karin doesn't blink, her gaze steady as if she were watching a wild animal, and Itachi supposes he is, in this way, no better than one.

She cradles her wrist close to her, and even if it wasn't severe he knows she's been hurt, that he has hurt her when he had not intended to. "I'm sorry," she eventually says, her voice small and weak and—

He does not want her to be sorry. He… He would rather she face him with anger, frustration, even _fear_, perhaps, because fear is protective, would keep her away from danger.

He does not want her to be sorry.

"It… was not your fault," he says, even though, technically, it was. To his own ears it does not sound very comforting. "I should not have reacted like that," he adds and Karin's shoulders relax. She offers him a tiny smile, and when he extends his hand she takes it, lets him help her off of the floor.

He finds, in that moment, he is capable of feeling relief.

Karin leaves shortly after that, adds only a few forgotten comments about Orochimaru before scurrying away, still somewhat tense.

Her touch lingers long after that, the sensation resting on the surface of his palms like oil.

Days later he and Kisame are passing through a forest when they're hit by a sudden ambush; nothing troubling, nothing they're unable to handle, but one of the men manages to deal him a blow to his left arm, hard enough that Itachi stumbles in forming hand signs, instead resorting to a quick genjutsu that instantly incapacitates the man.

It is rare for anyone to touch him, let alone an opponent, and he finds himself turning that thought over in his head, becomes acutely aware of all instances of physical contact, every accidental brush of a giggling tea shop waitress's hands, every stiff-shouldered man who refuses to step aside when they pass in the streets.

_Even now he doesn't like to be touched,_ his mother had said of him almost fifteen years ago.

He counts four days where he does not touch a single person; in three weeks, he makes contact with five different people.

(Over a year ago—he'd held Sasuke by the throat, held him up against a wall with his palm pressing down against Sasuke's windpipe, the closest they'd been in years, and told him, _You do not have enough hate_.)

The next time Karin reaches for his necklace she's slower, more considerate. She first places her hands against his shoulders and waits for his reaction, and her palms are warm, inviting. When he does not react, when he holds himself still and watches her watch him, she moves gradually inward, wrapping her arms around his neck.

Karin stands more than a head shorter than he does, and for her arms to make it all the way around his neck she stands closer to him, her feet between his. Her body presses up against his, her hips rocking against his experimentally.

Itachi reigns in his knee-jerk reaction and waits, breathes slowly, and allows her to guide him down far enough that, standing on the tips of her toes, she can just barely reach him.

She kisses him, slow and sweet, and he allows himself to rest in that moment, to disconnect himself from the rushing tides of destiny and fate and revenge and, in the space of several seconds, marvels at the feeling of another body so close to his, the absurd notion that someone, even someone desperate and damaged and lonely like Karin would desire that closeness with him.

(_You don't deserve this_, a voice in his head says. _You have a destiny._)

He says nothing, but when she finally pulls away Karin smiles up at him before leaning against his chest and, almost instinctively, his hand moves to her back, holds her close. "You don't have to fight it," she breathes, responding to some unspoken thought that's passed between them.

.

Karin tells him once that she likes flowers, and this makes finding small gifts for her much easier: he buys her bottles of jasmine perfume he finds in Suna, packets of daisy seeds from Kusa, rose tea from Kumo. Passing through the Land of Fire, he tastes an unusually tart hibiscus tea he does not particularly like but buys for her anyway, buys because the raspberry-red color of the brew is only a few shades off from the color of her hair, the color of her eyes.

His view of both her hair and her eyes grow hazy over time, a downside to his overuse of Mangekyo Sharingan. The colors are still clear to him, however, and his memory has captured enough images of Karin, enough memories of that same vibrant red sitting across the living room table from his mother that he can be certain he's gotten the color right.

.

She offers him trust, and far too much of it.

"Please? We can talk about Orochimaru later," Karin begs (and it is always _please_ with her, always asking something of him). She guides him to the bed and just this once, Itachi tells himself, he allows her to pull him on top of her. It feels awkward, unbalanced, and he holds his breath when she tips her head back and exposes her neck to him in what he can only think of as the most foolish, dangerous thing he has ever seen another person do.

As if it was not already foolish enough she takes his hand in hers and guides it to the collar of her shirt, pressing his palm flat against warm, bare skin, his thumb barely brushing the edge of a lone ring of teeth marks around the thin column of her neck. She's lost her mind, he thinks. She's not even _thinking_ about it.

Karin waits and then moves his hand further, has him cup the back of her head, supporting her neck.

Her hair has always looked coarse to him, chopped in uneven, crooked layers, but, feeling the tiny curls at the nape of her neck, he's surprised to find it's much softer than that, thick without being coarse.

Her shirt collar dips when he moves his hand, baring a necklace of pearl-white scars. They're right in front of him, and though he knows Karin has no reservations about showing them to him they feel too private to touch, almost too private to see.

She should know better than to let him touch her at all.

She laughs. "You're freaking out. It's okay." Her head lolls to the side, and the pulse in her neck is honey-slow, a resting pace he tries to match.

He tightens his grip by the smallest fraction and Karin closes her eyes, smiles. He's towering over her, his hand practically around her throat and she's _smiling_.

He could snap her neck like this. She has to know that.

"Here," she eventually says, tapping the clean surface of her throat, one part of her body she ought to guard the most.

"Kiss me here," Karin asks, and her throat vibrates in his hands as she talks, the cords in her visible as her head bends backwards.

Something about that makes it difficult for him to look away.

"Only if you want to," Karin amends, seemingly unbothered by his hesitation. Such a thing has never occurred to him before but, inexplicably, he finds himself drawn to it.

And so he does, pressing his lips lightly against the tips of her fingers. Karin sighs, and then laughs. "You knew what I meant," she teases, and—she's teasing him. Karin is teasing him.

It feels impossibly normal.

Itachi breaths, and breaths in her perfume, applied so heavily he can't help but wonder what she's trying to cover.

(He is young, perhaps five or six, standing in his mother's bedroom. He says nothing and she, perhaps not quite knowing how to speak to him, carries on a conversation with herself. "I only apply a little bit," she tells him, lightly dabbing perfume on her wrists, the sides of her neck. "Too much and it's overwhelming.")

Karin leans back and laughs again, a short, almost relieved puff of air. Her hand reaches up to comb through his hair, and she tilts her head to the side, still smiling. "You sure like to take your time," she remarks, though she doesn't seem to mind it.

At the very least, she doesn't move her hand.

.

Karin takes her exploration slowly, unexpectedly mindful of his comfort, his pleasure, and over time he finds it is possible to relax under her hands, and put his faith in the careful way they roam over his body.

.

Karin is emboldened to ask more of him, asks for greater access to his body, and he finds it difficult to deny her.

He does not entirely _want_ to deny her.

Karin puts his hands on her body and tells him, _touch me like this._ Runs her own hands over her body and says, _kiss me here_.

Bodily pleasures have been a nebulous concept to him, but distilled and reduced to simple commands Itachi finds himself able to, just barely, understand them.

She undoes her own buttons and zippers and it is, he thinks, a fearless, wild thing that she does. She bares her body to him as if there were no shame or recklessness in it, as if he were only an extension of herself.

Even in this way, with her skin flushed and hot under his fingertips, Karin's body is undeniably violent: there is no way, he thinks, a trail of bite marks, even aged, healed ones, could ever could appear to be anything but violent.

The violence never leaves her, and again come days when her hands are not solid and sure or soft and enticing but desperate, holding fast to him as if she were drowning, pulled down by a tide of memories he does not know, but understands as if he did.

It is not want that drives her in those moments but need, hair-pulling, lip-biting _need_.

_Just hold me_, she says, sprawled in his lap, her naked back against his chest, her legs spread over the bedsheets. She takes his hand and guides it between her thighs, hot and wet and when he finds the rhythm that makes her jerk and buck against him she breaks into sobs, grabs a fistful of his hair and shoves their mouths together, her tongue slipping into his mouth as if she meant to have every part of him, to claim all of him for herself. _I love you, I love you. Stay with me._

_I hate it there. I can't stay there,_ she'd said that night in the Land of Fire, lying in bed next to him drained, emptied. _Please, please,_ she cries now, so full of feeling that it manages to fill them both, her head thrown back as his fingers curl within her. _Please_.

He knows something of desperation - very little, but something - and he does not believe desperation alone can explain the way Karin pursues him.

"We'll take this as slow as you want," she says another time, sitting opposite him on some hotel bed, waiting patiently as he reads through a scroll she's lifted from one of Orochimaru's labs. She lies back on her elbows, stretches her legs towards him. Knocks his knees with hers and seems to say the water is fine, come in further.

And so he does.

(Once again, when he is not prepared, she backs him up against a wall, one knee sneaking between his legs, her hands slipping under the waistband of his pants. He steels himself and does not react, clamps down on the panic that rises when her fingertips meet bare skin, resists the ingrained response that tells him _fight_ and _danger_ and _stop_.

Karin still stops, though he is almost certain he had not shown any outward displeasure, knows he mustn't if they're going to continue. Knows he has harmed her once, and refuses to do it again.

"It's okay," she says, backing away from him with a frown, holding out her hands so he can see she's disengaged. "You're okay.")

.

Itachi is preparing to leave the inn where they've been staying when Kisame says, "I suppose it's only natural that shinobi such as ourselves would have to seek more intimate relationships with those who are also outcasts." They've only recently gotten back from an impromptu skirmish and so Kisame is resting, rewrapping Samehada on the bed.

Resting, but he still fixes Itachi with a knowing glance, his eyes already much more keen than Itachi would like.

Itachi does his best to disregard these comments, not in the least because he had initially sought nothing of sort from Karin. Initially. "I'm heading out. Don't expect me for several days."

Kisame only smiles, all teeth, and shrugs. "I'll see you in a few days, then. Go ahead and tell her _hi_ for me, why don't you?"

Miles down the road it occurs to him that, despite his best efforts, his relationship with Karin has strayed almost too far from Sasuke.

* * *

**AN**: I added another chapter! This, uh, really got out of hand! I don't (currently) intend to add much else so hopefully the last bit will be up a lot faster!

I'm not sure if it's something that necessarily needs explaining, but I think it's pretty important and distinguishing that, when Itachi accidentally hurts Karin, it's entirely on accident. Not only because it's, uh, *not at all good* to see it done on purpose, but because we know Itachi is willing and capable of hurting people close to him, and suppressing his own reactions to it. But what we've seen is very purposeful-he believes he benefits from Sasuke's hate, and so he can justify it in a fucked up mental calculus that tells him he's hurting Sasuke now because it will make Sasuke safer later. And, in my understanding of him, Itachi thinks a lot of his own control and discipline, and to accidentally hurt someone who wasn't attempting to harm him would be a failure of that.

Anyway.

The Itachi & Kushina tag is super underused (apparently it didn't exist before this fic, which is fun!) and I think there's a lot of potential in that relationship. Kushina was Mikoto's best friend and, as her son, Itachi would've had to think something of that.

Thanks again to everyone reading and leaving kudos :)


	3. Chapter 3

AN: Title taken from WCW's The Ivy Crown, but please see the end notes for more on that.

Warning for sexual content that's more mild than wild.

* * *

Itachi settles into a village north of Takigakure and waits there for Karin. The travel pack he brought is light, but still ought to last him the week should Karin arrive late or wish to remain in his company longer.

There is nothing wrong with either of those possibilities, he tells himself. The longer they are together, the more opportunities she will have to report on Sasuke and Orochimaru, and the additional time will allow Karin to think of any details she might have forgotten.

(He ignores the part of him that unexpectedly jumps to her defense—that she may be dramatic and emotional and occasionally distracted, but Karin has never been forgetful or in any way incompetent.)

He frames it as practically as he can: an underpaid informant is an unhappy one. An unhappy informant can be a dangerous informant.

Karin has only ever asked for his attention, after all. It seems such a small price to pay.

The longer Itachi goes without seeing Karin, the stranger their relationship seems to grow. He has always associated distance and separation with decay, with a weakening of memory and of bonds. Being apart from Sasuke is what allows Sasuke's memory to rewrite itself, to dig further and prune away all the inconvenient recollections of his older brother, to emphasize what remains. It allows Sasuke the space to nurture his hate without Itachi needing to interfere.

And yet, the longer Itachi waits to see Karin, the tighter she will cling to him when they're alone. The more he will find himself wondering about her after he leaves, and the longer he will spend watching her undress at their next meeting, squinting while he leans back on his elbows to count the new scars on her body. And, when she looks back and quirks an eyebrow at him, to turn away and say nothing.

It would be best, he thinks, if Karin prolonged their stay.

It costs him nothing but time (of which he already has too much) to keep her content, and she has done more than enough to have earned it. His finds this disposition is at sharp disagreement with Sasori's, whose advice on the matter of informants had been to use a firm hand. A domineering hand.

It is not a hand Itachi would use to touch Karin, and so he had quickly disregarded the suggestion.

("And another thing," Sasori had said, shaking his clunky head. "Never use a woman." Deidara had snickered, but Sasori ignored him and continued. "I've yet to find one who could show up on time.")

Itachi skips the formalities and rents a single room at one of the several inns in the village because he already knows Karin will insist on staying with him once she arrives.

He has the option to rent a room with more than one bed. He has, and always has had, the option to refuse her.

He sees no benefit in taking either.

It is part of a good ruse, Itachi thinks, because this is the easiest way for him to rationalize what it is they do. Any too-curious stranger who might look at the two of them would assume they were only lovers, that their hushed conversations were flirtations. That it is infatuation, and not concern, that will keep his eyes trained on her when they sit to have dinner.

It helps to convince others that, when Karin will close and lock the inn door behind her, nothing of significant value might be overheard from behind it.

(He arranges a meeting with her near a civilian village outside of Suna, where the people are known to be more conservative, more traditional. Where Karin, in her midriff-baring blouse and shorts, is somehow considered scandalous. The women in their head-coverings and ankle-length skirts watch them both with stern, matronly expressions, but he notes Karin does not hesitate to thread their fingers together, to introduce herself as his wife when they finally settle down at an inn.

He looks on, but does not correct her.)

In a village like this one, however, there are other advantages to having a roommate. It has much of the scenery of Kiri with none of the tourist appeal—nearby, there are beaches to freshwater lakes that will, come wintertime, freeze with waves still in motion, spiderwebbed slabs of ice cracked and floating away from the shores in heavy blocks.

That time is, by his reckoning, only a month or two away, and after a quick investigation Itachi finds there is no heater in their room, and in a city that receives so little sunlight their window is nothing but a conduit for the chill. He closes the blinds, and they only partially fit over the glass.

Imagining Karin will have no desire to explore such a place but feeling the need to be somewhat productive until she arrives, he leaves his cloak in the room and walks through the village on his own and watches the crowds of women pass him by in layered skirts of grey and navy blue that billow in the wind, thick belts cinched at their waists. He finds he blends in rather easily.

He finds that Karin does not.

"The inn. Now," is how she greets him, commanding and curt. She comes upon him as he's walking down a line of small shops but immediately beings to tug him away by the elbow, confidently directing them both in the wrong direction. Several women stop and muffle laughs into the long sleeves of their dresses as she hustles him past but Karin doesn't pay them a single second of attention.

She does, however, stop suddenly after they've gone only half a block, turning back to him. Her eyes drop, and then she sighs. "Which way is the inn?"

It's a rather impolite greeting but he does not comment on it, instead offers her his arm (which she gleefully takes, winking up at him: _Well, aren't you a gentleman today_?) and leads her back in the opposite direction.

Karin tips forward to lean against him when he stops to unlock their door, her cheek pressed against the back of his shirt. "I'm cold," she whines while he rummages through his pockets, poking the tip of her nose against his spine. "I need you to warm me up."

Another patron could come across them at any moment but Karin isn't particularly mindful of it, hooking her finger around the top button of his pants but going no further, laughing into his shirt.

"I'm making you nervous," she teases when he finally pulls the key out of the lock, as if he did not already know. "Are you embarrassed?"

"You aren't particularly skillful when it comes to acting inconspicuous." Except, in a way, maybe she is: what kind of shinobi would allow themselves to be fondled in an open hallway?

Within seconds of his opening the door Karin has already locked it behind her, pushed him towards the bed, and tossed her glasses onto the nearby dresser.

She throws him a look, and it's bold and challenging enough that its meaning is unmistakable. "If being inconspicuous is such a big deal to you," she remarks, calm enough that he knows better, "I better not hear a goddamn peep out of you." She unzips her shirt in one harsh tug, letting it slide down her arms, baring everything to him—chest, scars, and heart, all at once.

The sheets are cold but Karin burns—her fingertips are hot and the wild brightness of her hair flickers in the few weak rays of sunlight that bear in through the single gap in their curtains.

"But you should know I want to hear you, too," she whispers, her hands already unbuttoning his pants, untucking his shirt. "Come help me get warm."

("We never actually have sex," she remarks once, her eyes carefully trained on him to gauge his reaction, and his mind works so quick to eliminate the thought that he cannot even fully consider the risks involved, to think that he might become a _father_, of all things, a _parent_, and the idea is so beyond his ability to comprehend that Karin does not mention it again.)

She refuses to speak of anything remotely connected to her work until long after she's relieved them both of their clothes and repositioned his arms around her waist. Every question of his is stopped by her mouth, the loud hitches in her breath, the friction as she grinds down against his thigh, and he struggles to keep to a consistent train of thought until she muffles a groan into his neck and finally stills, her cheek resting against his while her heart continues to race. She lingers there a moment, her breathing heavy and hot in his ear, and then slides out of his arms and rolls onto her stomach with an exaggerated sigh of contentment, murmuring unintelligibly as she makes herself comfortable again.

To participate when Karin is not specifically directing him to do so is a strange thing, and he rarely does so. It is easy to receive an order and to fulfill it but, when it's left to his own discretion, he can't help but think it's an exploration he ought to avoid. What is intimacy if not a pursuit of one's desires? What right has he, of all people, to pursue his own desires?

He sees no issue in Karin doing so, however, and it isn't something he particularly minds—his skin is tacky with both of their sweat, his thigh slick where she'd been pressed against him, but it's not obtrusively uncomfortable. They'll both need to shower, but he'd be hard-pressed to call it unpleasant. He watches Karin fidget next to him and finds _unpleasant_ to be a difficult word to apply.

Months ago he would have pulled the sheet to cover them both, not only to spare her modesty but to cover the scars that wrap around her hip bones, that spread across her shoulders and neck like links in a chain.

They multiply—the few refuges of bare, unmarked skin on her body have slowly been eaten away throughout the years by white scar tissue. And yet, it only ever is scar tissue. He assumes Kabuto is involved, because while he regularly sees what seem to be fresh scars, he has yet to see open wounds or teeth marks that have not already healed.

Again he wonders, and still does not ask, what Orochimaru could possibly be doing to her.

The curtains in their room are still partially open but it's mainly artificial light that comes in through them now—this town, like some of the outskirt streets of Konoha, has no streetlamps but there's no shortage of neon signs here, loud advertisements to the few tourists who pass through. There are occasional footsteps above or below or just outside their door, other guests on their way to dinner at one of the few restaurants here.

In the cold of their unheated room, Karin's scars turn dark like bruises, purple-blue like the veins that stand out in her arms when she stretches and turns over onto her stomach, a streak of smoky green light from the window cutting over one shoulder blade.

He wonders if it wouldn't make more sense to pull her closer to him while they rest.

"You think so loud I can practically feel it," she mutters, voice muffled by her pillow. "Think about something sexier." He brushes this off as another one her nonsensical, flirtatious comments and says nothing. Even though her sensing range is abnormally large, it would be impossible for it to be so acute.

Karin closes her eyes and smiles, then rolls over onto him again, tucking her chin above his shoulder, wrapping one arm part-way around his back. "Maybe I could help with that."

There is more than enough room for the both of them, but Karin has never minded intruding into his bedspace—her naked legs curl into his, a stray, bony elbow comes to rest on his chest. Her hand reaches over to stroke his arm, and he turns to watch her finger trace over the ANBU insignia on his bicep.

It's an unfortunate relic, but there is no real way he might remove it—even if he knew a shinobi capable of removing chakra infused ink, he can't imagine placing such an inordinate amount of trust in one.

Karin's hand stills. "You don't like it when I touch that," she comments, unprompted. She seems to believe it without his confirming it, and her hand travels up his shoulder, her thumb moving along the lines of his collarbone. He tilts his head to let her continue, and rests his hands on her hips, not knowing where else he might put them. "You waited too long this time," she complains, although it's only barely been a month since he last saw her. "I missed you."

"Busy," is all he says, and she picks her head up only so he can see her roll her eyes.

Her lips are cold when she presses them to his neck, but when she runs her hand down his side, there's a warmth that again begins to build in his stomach. "You didn't miss me enough to make plans sooner?" It reeks of insecurity but, in an ironic sense, it seems to be only as a result of her growing confidence that she's able to ask it at all. Her hand lingers dangerously close to his groin, but he knows Karin will quickly lose interest in that if he doesn't reciprocate. "Should I give you more to miss?"

There's a novelty in it, if nothing else.

Even after she leaves, he knows the earthy-floral scent of her perfume on him will linger, that the trails of fire her fingers burned down his ribs will ache in the weeks to come.

(Sometimes he becomes curious, his mind unable to resist the temptation to think back, to try to piece together the strange and fraught affair his parents' marriage must have been but—but he does not think on it long. There is little utility in thinking so far into the past.)

Karin scoots further on top of him, propped up on her elbows, her hair falling down into his face. In the dark it's dulled, more purple than red, and yet something about it remains lively, fiery.

She shifts and he's acutely aware of the way their skin sticks together but he feels more skin than sweat, more of Karin than anything else. She grinds her hips down onto his, and he's unable to hold back a gasp he immediately regrets it when he sees her sneaky grin. "You liked that?"

He tips his head back and sighs, and she mimics it, exaggerated and mocking, before rocking against him again, though this time he at least expects it, and can hold her hips still.

She huffs and pouts at him. "It's a lot more fun when you let me get you off too, you know!"

Karin's mouth is - for lack of better words - absolutely _filthy_, but he's learned the best way to deal with this is not to threaten or chastise her and thus extend the conversation further, but to pay her no mind.

(At some point, he loses the desire to levy threats against her.)

She backs down with a huff, waving him off with one hand.

"Anyway," she says, flopping back down on the empty spot next to him, "Let me think of what Sasuke gossip I have for you this month, since you apparently can't wait to hear about him…"

She says it offhandedly, certainly more offended than anything, and yet Itachi is struck by the strange accuracy of it.

Kisame's words from days before, the implication that he and Karin have perhaps grown too close, ring in his mind and, disjointedly, he is able to recognize how gradually Karin has crept into his life. She begins to talk as if she hadn't noticed his reaction at all, and he does not interrupt her. "So anyway, I had to deal with him in the infirmary last week because he's a dumbass with no sense of self-preservation, and…" And he does not mean to, but he begins to tune her out.

She's certainly perceptive enough that she's learned more about him and his plans than he would have initially liked. But what does she truly know ?

He watches Karin speak and she's expressive as always, gesturing with her hands and genuinely seeming unbothered. As if she hadn't understood the potential weight of her comment.

To have revealed to her the depth of his devotion to Sasuke would have been unbearably dangerous, and so he has done nothing of the sort. Itachi has submitted to the unpredictable nature of Karin's reports and buried his curiosity whenever she mentions Sasuke. He does not pry but asks only those questions he believes someone who did not care for Sasuke would be motivated to ask.

Too often he cannot find that impartiality within himself, and he will ask nothing at all.

It will keep Sasuke safe, Itachi tells himself, and so he has done his best to feign an interest in whatever schemes of Orochimaru's Karin manages to uncover, if only to keep her distracted from his true intentions.

In a moment of abject horror, he realizes Karin has not reported on Orochimaru for several months, and not once has he objected.

Rather than alert her to anything amiss, he waits until she's meandered through several more anecdotes concerning Sasuke's training with Kabuto, whom she seems to particularly dislike.

At least, he assumes she dislikes him.

It's rather difficult to tell with Karin sometimes, and in the moment he finds it significantly more frustrating than it would typically be.

She finishes by calling Kabuto a _rat-fucking bastard_, and lets out a hot breath, then rolls to sit over the side of the bed to gather her clothes.

"And what of Orochimaru's plans?" he tries, turning over to watch her hunt for her lilac-colored shirt and shorts, the uniform she'd once been proud to show off to him. "You've said very little about him as of late."

Karin snorts and shrugs her shirt over her shoulders, zipping it up before turning around to flash a smirk at him. "So what, you're gonna pretend you actually care about what Orochimaru does now?"

He isn't entirely sure how to respond to that, but Karin laughs. It isn't a particularly kind laugh, and yet Karin seems more smug than anything. "What, like you thought you were being clever with that? I'm _good_ at what I do." She shrugs, unbothered. "Sasuke's obviously a bigger threat than Orochimaru in the longer run; obviously I would have realized it too."

She says it airily, without too much weight, but he can't help but wonder what Karin believes he was trying to hide. She is still Karin, insecure and fighting for his attention, and so he tells himself it's a contest of sorts, that it is not a threat but something she is presenting to him for his approval. That she doesn't truly realize what she's uncovered.

Isn't she right, after all? Wouldn't Sasuke ultimately present a greater threat to him?

Karin quirks an eyebrow at him and inclines her head towards the door. "There's a ramen place a block away; there's barely a crowd there right now and I'm getting hungry."

He lays the matter to rest, and Karin goes back to telling him about Sasuke's most recent successes in his genjutsu training, another effort she understands is meant to help Sasuke bring about Itachi's death, and yet she does not seem particularly interested in or bothered by this conflict.

She does not seem particularly bothered by anything, and perhaps he should be more concerned about that than he is.

Karin stands to finish dressing, and he shelves the thought for another time and, even in the semi-darkness, averts his eyes out of respect.

Respect that Karin seems to find funny.

She laughs again, much lighter this time, and he hears her zip up her shorts. A second later the mattress dips under her weight and she leans over him, tapping the bottom of his chin until he tilts his head back, and she kisses him lightly. "Now's a good time to ask me to dinner," she whispers, before kissing him again.

.

.

.

Itachi only meets Karin once every month or so, but as the months go by he finds himself looking for more excuses to extend their meetings, to prolong their time together.

He tells himself it is because of Sasuke, that being near to Karin is the closest he can come to his brother until Sasuke is prepared to kill him, and without Karin there are very few ways of knowing how soon that will be.

She tells him of Kirin, a jutsu so powerful Orochimaru believes it might take another year for Sasuke to perfect it, and this tells Itachi that he and Karin will at least have that time together.

There is no rush, he thinks, because his fate is predetermined. No matter how long it takes Sasuke to come for him, he will come.

It is not incorrect to say the happiness he feels in Karin's company is happiness derivative of Sasuke, because everything in his life is derivative of Sasuke. Everything in his life _ought_ to be derivative of Sasuke; he can imagine no other way of living.

There are ways, after all, in which Karin comes to remind him of Sasuke: his relationship to her will always necessarily be different, always subordinate, and yet while Karin could never occupy the same roles Sasuke once had, she comes close to almost filling them.

She is not his younger brother, and yet she seeks his approval before anything else, nonchalantly reporting her advancements under Orochimaru but, like Sasuke once had, turning to gauge his reaction when she believes he is not looking, hungry to impress him.

He is not her older brother, is _far_ from it, and yet when she reports the presence of a shinobi she can only describe as _cold_ and _far too strong to overlook_, she turns to him for guidance. Once upon a time it had been Sasuke dogging his steps through uncomfortable family gatherings, unfamiliar neighborhoods in their village, but now it is Karin, leaning in to update him on the shinobi's presence, her hand clutching the sleeve of his cloak.

Still, to say his only interest in Karin is her attachment to Sasuke is an incomplete telling, a picture lacking more than one color. There are intimacies they share where Sasuke has no place.

(He sustains a minor injury during a skirmish in Kiri that Karin insists on checking, clicking her tongue and calling him all manner of names as she none-too-gently pokes the edges of his bruise. He winces and she calls him a _thick-headed moron,_ an _absolute idiot _and jabs him again in the ribs with one hand even as she digs through her pack for bandages with the other. It aches, and yet he finds there's a surprising lack of sting to it.)

There are things about Karin he simply cannot explain, an uncanny way that she understands his thoughts, enigmatic shrugs and knowing smiles he should find significantly more concerning than he does.

It is her love of mischief, he thinks, that paradoxically sets him at ease: Karin is too volatile, too wily to make a real threat of herself. She's too devoted to him to even consider it. She will not invite an ambiguity into their relationship that does not have a punchline at the end of it, her desire to impress him too great for her to keep too many secrets.

He refuses to consider any alternative explanations.

.

.

.

Itachi calls for her in Kumo and expects to be kept waiting for a week at the very least, doesn't send his crow to find her until he's already halfway to the city. It is not a quick journey: the way to Kumo is marked by poorly carved paths and increasingly high altitudes that steal his breath, bringing on dizzy spells that come so often he regularly needs to sit and rest on his journey there.

He assumes everyone experiences this, and months from then he will find out he is wrong.

He travels alone, and so he doesn't move with any particular haste, looking down the cliffside periodically to see ribbons of clouds spread below him, rocks that disappear into the sky when he kicks them away from the edge.

Again, he makes no great show of renting a single room with one bed he fully intends to share, and then he waits.

Karin shows within a few days, far ahead of schedule, with the crow he sent after her perched somewhat conspiratorially on her shoulder, bending down to preen when he looks to it for an explanation.

Itachi almost doesn't answer her knocking because it's too soon, too unlikely to be Karin and he isn't expecting anyone else. He has had several days to rest but he's still tired, still unusually lightheaded, and he would rather go back to sleep than confront an intruder.

Still, tired as he is, he is cautious enough to investigate.

If it were someone planning to kill him, he thinks, it seems very unlikely they'd be gagging in the hallway, breathing loud enough for him to hear it through the door.

"That… fuck… ing _sucked_," Karin gasps when he opens it, stumbling through the open doorway and tugging on his shirt, collapsing onto him to catch her breath. Miraculously, she manages to pull in enough air to continue talking. "Fuck that. Fuck doing that ever again. Never come back here again." She groans, and smothers her sweaty face into the front of his shirt. "Itachi…"

His crow squawks in protest, scrambling in a fit of feathers as it tries to keep its hold on the back of her shirt, and Itachi obliges by reversing the summons.

It seems to him Karin's exhaustion is her own fault, that there was no need for her to hurry when she should have known he'd remain there for a longer time than was typical for him. That he would have still waited for her even if she did not show within a week.

(Does she know that?)

"Well, maybe you would have, maybe you wouldn't," she says, letting out a choked laugh. "Happy fucking birthday. Next time give me more time to get here, you ass."

Itachi pays very little attention to time and dates but he considers it, recalling the day of the week, that the first of the month had been over a week ago… And he realizes she's likely correct.

It has been so long since he'd thought to even acknowledge his own birthday, and longer still that anyone else would have wanted to do so.

It's rather strange that Karin, of all people, would be the exception to that.

It's rather strange that Karin, of all people, would know of his birthday when he has not once mentioned it to her. When she should have no way of accessing that information.

She tugs on his shirt to get his attention and frowns up at him, her face still flushed from exertion. She's indicated before that she has very little combat training, and he doesn't doubt that, for her, making the journey here in such a short period of time would have been extraordinarily taxing. And yet, here she is.

"What, you aren't even going to act grateful? Do you have any idea how fast I had to run to get here?!"

It is mere mischief, he tells himself, knowing any other explanation would require him to think very carefully and weigh Karin's utility against the risks she might pose. That, should she fail, the easiest and quickest remedy would be disposing of her.

"I…" He is not entirely sure what an appropriate response would be. It was not something he asked of her, and yet she's done it for his sake. "I do appreciate it." Does he? The line between humoring Karin and indulging inappropriately has grown rather thin.

He braces himself for the creeping sense of guilt that should naturally follow, but Karin has never been patient enough to wait for him to order his thoughts.

She rolls her eyes but doesn't seem to be too bothered, and she starts herding him back further into the room, her hands sliding up his forearms, under his sleeves, and her touch is so warm, so familiar, that he can't help but shiver. She grins. "So we should talk about getting you a present, shouldn't we—"

Mischief, he tells himself. It is only mischief.

.

.

.

There come days where Karin has no news of Sasuke, no developments that are worth mentioning, and Itachi finds he does not mind.

.

.

.

It does nothing, however, to divert him from his course.

.

.

.

Vengeance trails slowly after Itachi, but death comes much faster.

What starts as an inconvenient series of aches and periodic bouts of exhaustion becomes a diagnosis, and the sparse time allotted to him by a rogue med-nin is quickly running out.

They meet again in the Land of Fire. Konoha is less than ten miles away but perhaps he's feeling a little reckless, maybe he's beyond the point of worrying about being found by Konoha shinobi. Maybe it's important that he make this pilgrimage one more time, to venture as close to the Uchiha clan's resting ground as he can manage.

He supposes it doesn't quite matter if he can't make it all the way there. His clansmen will be waiting for him no matter where he meets his demise, and he doesn't doubt that Sasuke plans to dispose of his body far, far away from the graveyard where the rest of their family remains.

This is, he believes, the last time he and Karin will see each other.

It is better for them both that she does not know that.

"You'll want to hear about this," Karin says when she slips into the room he's rented, tossing her backpack somewhere on the floor. He ignores it and instead watches her talk; her face is too difficult for him to make out completely but the outline of her is clear, her back straight, one hand resting on her hip while she gestures with the other. "The guards at the Northern Hideout have been talking about it nonstop. You know Naruto? The one Sasuke talks about sometimes? So he and some other—"

He has a good enough idea of where this is going, and so he holds up a hand to interrupt her. "We'll have time to talk about that later." It is a lie, because the time they have is quickly running out. It is a lie, and he doesn't particularly care. Sasuke is as close to him as the rot in his lungs, and whether or not he hears what Karin has to say, Sasuke heralds a death just as inevitable. "There are other things I'd like to see to first."

"Okay, but this is really something else, like, there…" Her thought trails off rather predictably when he stands from the bed and grabs the hem of his shirt, lifting both it and his mesh undershirt over his head at once. She blinks.

They've come full circle, he thinks, remembering the night nearly three years ago in another village not too far from there, where Karin had cried and clung to him, fought and demanded his attention. He had, back then, been fully prepared to walk out and leave her to her private terrors.

Karin deserves, if only this just now, to be the one pursued.

"Other things first," he repeats, folding his shirts and setting them over his backpack before glancing back at her. "If you wouldn't mind."

For once she's speechless, and in a way it's a little bit funny—that apparently all he's ever needed to do to quiet her is to disrobe.

Karin recovers quickly, however, and hurriedly begins to undress, her grin unstoppably proud as if - well, as if he were about to hand her everything she'd ever wanted from him. When she tugs down the zipper on her shirt, he places his hands over hers.

"May I?" he asks, and again she relents wordlessly, holding her breath when he slips her shirt from around her shoulders and onto the floor and lifts her chin, mouthing her jaw, her neck, her shoulders. Her brokenness shows in the way she moves; when he moves his lips and she twitches, when his teeth scrape against her collarbone and her entire body goes rigid.

When he palms her hips and, slowly, her body eases.

He guides her backwards until she's lying flat on the bed, wild red hair fanned out around her head and he crawls over top of her, fixing her hips between his knees. Finally he's able to lean in close enough to make out her expression, dazed and wide-eyed and unimaginably beautiful. He presses his lips against her shoulder, right over an imprint of teeth too large to be his, and she sighs, her body relaxing under his. Distantly, he's able to smell her perfume, sweet and soft and familiar in a visceral sense.

It's a scent he had gotten for her years ago, long enough that he shouldn't remember, that it should have no cosmic significance, but it's something he's done for her that he can cling to, something of him that will remain after his body has been burned or buried or disposed of in whatever way Sasuke sees fit.

His hands seek every inch of sensitive skin on her body; this is the end, his last opportunity to wrap his hands around her thin wrists, to bend her arms back over her head and watch her face flush after he kisses her, insistent as if one kiss were capable of apologizing for every boundary he'd forced her to overcome to get there. Karin writhes and gasps beneath him, tugging her hands out of his grip and tangling her fingers into his hair, tugging harshly at it when his hands reach the waistband of her shorts.

She laughs when he pauses and it sounds uncertain, almost nervous.

Karin is the driving force in whatever relationship they have; there is no sense in disputing it. Her hands run over his shoulders, coaxing him back up towards her. She's falling back into familiar patterns, used to taking the lead, and yet there are things he needs to communicate to her that he cannot put into words, that cannot be said except under his direction. He parts her legs, runs his hands down to her knees and back up to her hips, and her breath hitches.

"If you were of the same mind," he says, "I want to do this now."

Her hands still, and even without saying it explicitly, he knows she's understood his meaning.

"It isn't like you to be so cautious," he comments when she doesn't reply, bending down to place kisses between the bumps of her ribs.

"Yeah," she finally answers, her voice breathy, faraway. "It really isn't." His thumb brushes her navel and her body shudders as if he'd never touched her before. "Keep going," she says, firmer, and he has every intention of doing so.

"You look beautiful," he tells her when he pulls away, unable to truly see her except for a dim outline.

"You… you're ridiculous," Karin remarks, suddenly coming back to herself with a defensive snap. She turns her head, and—she was blushing now. He could see the redness spread from her cheeks to her neck.

Had he ever made her blush before?

"You are, though," he says, and he's only half-surprised when she begins to undo her own shorts, sliding them down her legs and kicking them off somewhere onto the floor.

"And you're still slow as ever."

He quickly follows suit and when he guides her legs around his waist her back arches to meet him, her hands fisted in the bed sheets beneath her, knuckles ash-white, her breaths almost too quiet to hear. His breaths come rough and ragged and his chest burns but he can't slow his pace for anything, can't walk back from this until he's seen it through.

He kisses her and after the hundreds of kisses they have shared it still feels new, as though he is still finding new ways to experience the waxy aftertaste of her lipstick, the drag of her tongue against his.

When he parts his lips, it is Karin's gasp that he hears.

(He recalls a poem he'd read once, long ago in the time when his eyes still could see well enough to read and he had the time to read, when he could divorce himself from his thoughts long enough to imagine, for even the shortest time, a reality beyond his own.

_A man and a woman are one_, it had read, and the novelty of it had never occurred to him until the exact moment when their bodies come together and he ceases to be alone, ceases, if only momentarily, to be separate from her. _A man and a woman are one. _

A man and a woman in a story of inescapable rhythms and barbaric glass, and he and Karin in a cheap inn room, fumbling in the dark towards some universal connection neither of them might ever experience again.)

Karin cries out and her entire body shakes when he moves inside her and he holds her closer still, cupping one of her thighs in his hand. When she drags her nails across his back there is no space for his thoughts to be anywhere but with her, nowhere he could escape where she couldn't follow.

He has bottled gentleness in his heart since he was thirteen, kept it sealed away like the most dangerous of weapons or poisons because, used against him, that is exactly what they might become and yet he feels it spilling out of him now, has no other opportunity to use it but here, coaxing Karin's body to move with his, to be a man and a woman and, if only this once, _one_.

"Ah, I—this. _You_." Anything else he might have said of it is muffled into his pillow when he climaxes, half-eaten words spilling from his mouth. It's too often been the opposite between them, that she has been the one to fill his emptiness, to pour her love into him. Her body tenses underneath him and she throws her head back gasping, hot and tight around him but he holds her tighter still, keeps them joined if only to suspend the moment.

It is a foolish game of chance he believes he might win, that he might lie with her, taking no precautions, and that nothing will come of it. That, even if they did manage to conceive a child, he will be long dead before he would know of it.

"I've always known the kind of man you were," she whispers to him later, when they separate and he returns from the washroom. He brings a wet washcloth to clean the stain of his seed from her thighs, if only so she can rest a while longer. She lays back and allows him, but her fingers weave around his, not to grasp them but to touch him, her nails circling his knuckles as he washes away the last traces of what they've done. "And that's why I love you."

For her to know his nature is impossible, and yet he doesn't doubt she's come close to some semblance of the truth. He nods, stares momentarily at their intertwined hands but, ultimately, can say nothing in response.

He backs away, and returns to the washroom alone.

At best, she'll find it callous of him, but ultimately she'll shrug it off. One day, perhaps, she will recall him as cold and distant and—and this will benefit both of them. It's the kindest gift he could give to her, that she will have the fortune to look back on their years together and to think of it only as two shinobi conducting business transactions. That, sex or no sex, he was ultimately using her as a means to an end.

In spite of this she is unusually calm in the aftermath, and while they lie together, clothed and still, she threads her fingers into his hair and allows a twilight silence to fall between them, sprawled out on the bed as the moon passes by the window by inches, lying against his shoulder and not, thankfully, against his chest. For once she has very little to say, but they've passed the point where words are sufficient or necessary.

Anything he might have needed to say to her has been said—said with his hands and body in a way his tongue along could never accomplish.

Itachi has asked too much of his body regardless and he sleeps restlessly now, unsure how much more he might ask of it before it will no longer comply. Some nights he doesn't sleep at all, and when he lies next to Karin he conceals it the best he can, enduring the building pressure in his chest and persistent ache behind his eyes as she rests beside him, slowly tapering off into sleep, her yawns muffled into his shoulder. She has always been a rather heavy sleeper but even in sleep she clings to him, her hands fisted tightly in his shirt or his hair.

Her breaths come slower and slower until he feels secure enough to untangle himself from her and leave the bed, looking for a more solitary place to rest if sleep will not come for him. Karin grumbles, but doesn't awake.

This is their end. It is impossible for them to become closer than they have just been and so he accepts the inevitability that every action they take going forward is a step away from each other, her into a greater, brighter future, and him towards his grave. He shuts the door behind him, and the boundary between them feels all the more tangible for it.

The cheap fluorescent lights in the washroom do nothing to help him see better, only aggravate his headache more, and so he leaves them off, feeling his way to the counter with little trouble.

For a few minutes he stands alone with the door locked and lets the sink run hot, steam rising. It's not much, but he's learned to appreciate small pockets of relief, however rare they are.

He leans forward, resting his bare forehead against the bathroom mirror, and tries to breathe.

Twenty-one years of life, and he supposes it's only fair he'll spend the last few months of it sleepless. Weeks, perhaps, if Sasuke is diligent. What sense is there now in concerning himself with the exact details of it? Sasuke will come, and Itachi will be waiting.

There is nothing he might do now but move forward, to continue slouching towards the death he had promised himself almost ten years prior, and to leave Karin behind. It is, he supposes, kinder that way.

When he cracks open the door Karin is still lying in bed, her back to him. He can't see her exactly but can make out the shades of her: crimson red that tells him he's looking at the back of her head, a smear of light blue he already knows is a shirt of his she wore to bed. She wears it, he knows, with nothing underneath, her legs bare under the bedsheets.

It is better, he tells himself, that she will not have the certainty of his words to think back on once he is gone. That Sasuke will be the one to write his ending, and Karin will have no choice but to eventually succumb to whatever legacy Itachi leaves.

It comes upon him almost accidentally that this is the closest they'll come to domesticity, that the only house they'll ever keep is a hotel room of takeout containers and empty drawers, half-emptied backpacks thrown on the floor.

Karin has asked no questions and has not pressed him about his growing disinterest in intimacy, has been unusually forgiving of his exhausted irritability that, he admits, has only gotten worse in light of his insomnia. Both he could manage to stave off for just this night, and yet part of him can't help but wonder if they're connected in such a way that she can sense the end is near, that these days they spend together will be their last.

He thinks, selfishly, that in another life there might have been more than this between them, more he might have offered to her, but he knows his own karma well enough to wish whole-heartedly that he and Karin will not meet again for several lifetimes over. That this will be, for as long as possible, the end between them.

He tries to step softly but in the dark, with his clouded vision, navigating the room is not as simple as it should be without Sharingan and on his way back to the bed he stumbles over her backpack, tossed rather absentmindedly near the edge of the bed.

Karin grumbles and he pauses, waiting to see what she might do.

"C'mere," she slurs, groaning and squeezing her pillow as if she meant to suffocate it. "S'cold."

Itachi sighs, and sits on the edge of the bed, a joint in his knee cracking when he lowers himself down.

Twenty-one years of life, and even the joints in his body are worn down.

Karin does not comment on it, and so he runs his hand over her back, feeling the knobby bumps of her spine. She murmurs something he cannot decipher and her body relaxes, though the rhythm of her breathing remains steady, awake. It's too late for either of them to be up, and he hears very little else, no other guests drunkenly stumbling through the hallways or snippets of conversations filtering in through the walls of their room.

Just him, and just Karin, breathing in, and breathing out.

For now it is only the two of them but one day, one very soon, this will come to an end. He is going to die. He has had almost a decade to come to terms with it but Karin does not know, will not know until after the fact, perhaps not until days or weeks or months after his death.

He is going to die because death is his only atonement, is the only way he might, perhaps, one day see Sasuke again and apologize.

There is no word in his vocabulary to describe exactly what it is he and Karin have become, what it is they do, but a conceited, selfish part of his mind tells him their relationship is as unique to her as it is to him, that there is no other man's shirt for her to sleep in. That, when he dies, there will be no other man waiting for her.

He's never thought to ask if there was, and he does not believe he has any right to do so, no right to place even the smallest expectation of exclusivity upon her when he has never treated what they do as a permanent kind of relationship.

For once, he is the one to break the silence.

"There is something I would like to know," and she again grumbles something unintelligible, burrowing further under the covers. "Orochimaru's three years are nearly at an end."

She snorts. "Yeah." Karin turns onto her back and yawns, stretching out her arms. Her voice is soft, a little hoarse, and he already regrets having this conversation at such an inopportune time. "We just fucked and you're thinking about Orochimaru?" She blinks up at him, and they're close enough that he can make out tired circles around her eyes. He wonders what, if anything, would be capable keeping Karin awake at night. "I think I'm the one who told you that, anyway. What about it?" She squints, her eyesight almost as poor as his when she does not have her glasses. "It's the middle of the night."

Itachi reaches forward and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, letting his hand linger over her cheeks, her red eyes only half-seeing him in the dark. Her lips perk up, and she leans against his hand.

"You're so sappy today…" She punctuates this with a stifled yawn, and she shakes her head. "Come be sappy under the covers instead."

It is perhaps better that Karin is not in the most coherent state of mind and that, should he say more than he ought to, it could easily be explained in the morning as a fault of her memory.

He's started this, however, and it makes more sense to see it through sooner, rather than later. "Suppose Sasuke manages to kill him," and his blood runs cold at the mere thought of any other outcome, the sheer inability of his mind to comprehend a future where he might outlive Sasuke. "What will you do?"

Karin hums thoughtfully, and reaches one hand up to lay her palm against his hand, hers a good deal softer. "Don't suppose the Akatsuki are trying to recruit me, are they?"

"No." But they very well may be soon, especially if it's someone with Karin's talents, her experience. After Itachi's death a position will certainly be open, and though their abilities are vastly different, Itachi imagines the other Akatsuki would be eager to add to their ranks a sensor as skilled as Karin when multiple jinchuuriki are still at large.

So long as Itachi stands between Karin and his colleagues, however, he is in a position to direct her attention away from them and towards a safer, more innocent way of living.

It seems like the least he can do.

(Almost ten years ago, he remembers—cousin Izumi crying, soft, barely concealed whimpers when he told her, emphatically, that she was not meant to be a shinobi.

She'd cried, and he'd been proud of it: proud that he might change her mind. He had truly believed he might save her.)

Perhaps, he thinks, this has been the only way he's ever been capable of expressing his love—through deceit and manipulation and an inability to put into firm, undeniable words what he believes with his entire being.

Perhaps it is why his end will be brought about by the person he has loved more than anything in the world.

Karin snorts and finally sits up, kicking the bedsheets off of her legs and wiggling into his arms to make herself comfortable, not bothering to ask his permission. Her body is pleasantly warm against his, though, warmer still when she wraps her naked thighs around his waist.

"You spend too much time thinking," she comments. She's so light her weight barely registers; even now, disease-eaten and half-dead, his shirts are large enough to droop off of her shoulders.

A half-delirious, insomniatic part of him wants to ask her about it, but it's such a poorly timed question that he bites it back, resolves to ask it ask it another time. Tomorrow, he supposes, because there won't be any other times.

For now, she's warm, and he can't help but pull her closer, letting Karin rest her head against his shoulder. She sighs, and her body sags against his, the way his father would sometimes fall back into an armchair after a long day of patrols. As if she had full confidence in his ability to support her.

She reaches forward and holds his hands against her hips with her own. "God, your hands are freezing." She presses his hands tighter, rubbing more warmth into them, apparently lost on some tangent of thought.

After a moment she stops, and moves her hands around his waist, her fingers tucking into the edges of his shirt. "I wonder how long you're planning to keep me around if Sasuke leaves." She hesitates, and then adds, "That's what this has always been about, isn't it?"

It has, but it's not something she has any business wondering.

"I've got nothing to sell now, so you've got nothing to buy?" Karin releases her grip on him and leans back on her arms, her legs dangling over his. She gives him a look he can't quite decipher, a conflicted slant to her eyebrows, a curious quirk to her mouth. "So this is really it?"

She must have already considered the possibility, because she does not seem too let down by it. Or, perhaps, enough time has passed that it's something she has outgrown. Rather than approach him with tears and beg him to remain with her, she only shrugs.

(Is he disappointed to see those days have passed?)

He squints slightly to get a better picture of her, having learned before that activating Sharingan unannounced was rather impolite when they were in bed together. Even so, Karin's expression is beyond his reckoning. She purses her lips, then asks, "Are you going to be worried about me?" her enunciation so clear he can practically hear whatever calculations underlie it, even if he does not fully understand them.

"It would be unlike you to not be prepared." He tries to speak diplomatically, indifferently, but his own hands to betray his thoughts. It's too dark for him to see, almost too far away even as close as they are, but he can feel tiny pockmarks under his hands when he runs them up and down her thighs, bitemarks and bruises and scars where they have no business being on her body.

Touching her has become near automatic for him, that he would seek to hold her, comfort her, whether or not she truly needs it. To apologize for leaving before he has even left. He has done so little good in his life that acts of atonement, great or small, are the only good left for him.

And yet, there is no exact black or white in what is good. Karin is by any metric a criminal, the servant of one nukenin, the lover of another, and yet under his hands she's pearly white, rows and rings of it that tells him she is much more than who she serves and who she loves and what she has done.

She may not be wholly good or even good by half but to hold her and comfort her is undeniably something good.

"Are you worried about me?" she repeats, watching his hands move. She bends towards his mouth as if she means to kiss him but pauses a few inches short, her eyes flickering down to his lips before returning to his eyes. "Poor me, all alone in the world?"

Itachi does not close the distance between them. He acknowledges, however, that the temptation is there, and that Karin is likely mindful of this. "I'm confident in your ability to adapt."

She shrugs, and is suddenly relaxed again, moving a couple inches back and humming in agreement. "I think Sasuke plans to ask me to go with him after Orochimaru's been dealt with. He's made a few comments about needing someone with my abilities for a future mission he's planning. Think it's a good opportunity?"

Karin is intentionally being vague, but he does not need her telling to know what mission Sasuke is plotting.

She must be aware of it as well, and so he wonders if there is a trick to this, or if it is merely an attempt to pit him against his brother. If it's Karin's way of taking out whatever frustrations she has against him. Or, perhaps, the closest she is willing to come to giving him a warning.

It is, however, the safest option for her. He has never wondered if Karin possesses the same capacity for cruelty as he does, if she could stand aside and watch Sasuke bring about whatever death he has imagined and say nothing. If she'd be able to act pleased by it.

(Would Sasuke?)

Karin hums, and her knee bumps his elbow. "You done thinking about it?"

It would be a rather unusual way of ending things, but Itachi supposes Karin's loyalties have never been exclusively his, and he has never asked her to reveal the fine details of whatever relationship she has with Sasuke. He assumes Sasuke would at the very least be capable of looking after her, and the thought is a balm to his nerves.

That being said, it would be rather odd from her perspective if he encouraged her to follow the man who will one day bring about his death. "You join him at your own peril."

"Do I?" Karin grins and bares her teeth at him and they're unnaturally bright in the darkness of their room, unusually predatory. "I've been thinking about that…" She hooks a finger into the collar of his shirt and pulls him in closer, cheek-to-cheek, her lips up against his ear. "He's coming after you after he finishes Orochimaru." It's not a question but a statement.

"That would be the logical next step for him."

"And then the two of you will fight." He has nothing to say to that, and her hand taps on his shoulder, not quite impatient, but contemplative. "And one you will die."

"It seems likely."

"You're definitely stronger than he is." Karin stops a moment, then adds, "But not if you're not planning to fight with killing intent."

"I'm not quite sure what you mean by that." He thinks of her comment earlier—_I've always known the kind of person you were_, and he frowns. Their faces are too close together for him to make out her expression, to gain a firmer handhold on her meaning.

What does Karin truly know?

She hums. "I've thought about it before, you know. Killing Sasuke myself. I could slip something into his drink, sneak into his room one night… I'm not the noble death type, but he trusts me." She pauses, and he can hear the proud smirk in her voice. "I wouldn't have to worry about you fighting him if I could just kill him first."

Karin releases his shirt and leans back again, almost as if she were admiring her own handiwork, her cocky smile as sharp as any knife that's been held against him.

There is a dire need for him to say something to that, to misdirect or contradict or, for heaven's sake get that idea out of her mind now —but how can he without exposing himself? "I—" he what? "I don't believe killing Sasuke outright is necessary for me to get what I want." It will not give her what she wants, either, but how can he say that? If Sasuke died, of course Itachi would hurry after him, of course he would never want to live a second longer than Sasuke but—

Sasuke's eyes, he needs to take Sasuke's eyes, and so she _can't_ kill him. She has to know she can't kill Sasuke, he has to tell her—

Karin places a soft kiss against his bare forehead, her lips resting there long enough for his racing heart to beat several times before she backs away again. "You need to relax," she says airily, "I'm just kidding."

Itachi slowly releases the breath he's been holding, and the relief to his lungs almost sends him into a coughing fit.

Karin threads her fingers into his hair. "Do you honestly think I could kill Sasuke?" When he doesn't answer she kisses him once more, this time on the lips. She pulls back and kisses him again, slower this time, somehow full of passion he can't bring himself to reciprocate, her body becoming liquid against his, impossibly warm, inexplicably cruel. "I'm nobody, Itachi. Don't you know that?"

Karin is far too dangerous to be _nobody_.

His head throbs, either from a lack of sleep or from overthinking, a lifetime (_twenty-one years_) of parsing through every inconvenient thought that's crossed his mind.

If he must choose between Karin and Sasuke it is not even a choice, can be decided in an instant but it's too uncertain, her intentions are so unclear—_what does she know?_ She's made an open threat. He can't ignore an open threat.

He knows he can do it. He has carved out his own heart so many times that there remains no boundary he has not crossed once before, no act so depraved that it is beyond his reach.

(So why doesn't he do it?)

Karin's arms wrap around his shoulders, coiling around him like a snake, and it is suddenly imperative that he does not forget where Karin has come from, who has taught her.

What he has given her, and what she intends to take. "Well, don't worry about it, then," she says, resting her head against his shoulder. She grumbles good-naturedly, as if his hands weren't inches from her throat, "You worry too much; it's bad for your health."

He can't do much more than nod in response. (What does she _know_?)

"Put your arms around me," she demands, though not harshly, and his mind is too overwhelmed by greater matters to not comply. "You've got nothing at all to worry about." She places another gentle kiss to his jaw, and Itachi is so, so tired of thinking, of trying to wrangle the uncertain threads of his future.

Karin finally slips out of his lap, tucking back the blankets on the bed. She coaxes him closer and he doesn't think to resist, allows her to pull him down onto the mattress beside her, resting his head against her chest.

"I think you need to sleep, Itachi," she says, and he does not disagree.

He sighs and his chest aches, his head aches, _all_ of him aches and—Karin runs her hand down his back, moving it in circles he can't help but find soothing, calming in spite of the mess she has made, in spite of the blood he may have on his hands by morning.

(Through her chest he can feel her heartbeat.)

And again—a surfacing memory his will can't seem to hold down—

He is eight again, so sick he does not leave bed, is not able to eat anything but is made to sit up and take whatever is put into his hands and he has no choice but to comply, to linger half-asleep while his mother manipulates his body.

_You need to drink something_, she says, her palms cool when she places them over his cheeks. He can still remember the feel of her hands, how her wedding band had been ice cold, biting against his skin, but the details of her face are hazy, lost somewhere in the feverish, childhood memory.

Mother has been dead for nearly ten years but—perhaps it's because he is so close to seeing her again that this memory comes back.

There's a hand on the back of his neck. "Don't worry about it," Karin whispers. "I'm going to take care of you."

* * *

**AN:**

Title taken for WCW's The Ivy Crown:

"I love you  
or I do not live  
at all.

DAFFODIL TIME  
is past. This is  
summer, summer!  
the heart says,  
and not even the full of it.  
No doubts  
are permitted –  
though they will come  
and may  
before our time  
overwhelm us.  
We are only mortal  
but being mortal  
can defy our fate.  
We may  
by an outside chance  
even win! We do not  
look to see  
jonquils and violets  
come again  
but there are,  
still,  
the roses!"

I wasn't really thinking too hard about "The Ivy Crown" when I started writing this fic-I think, at the time, I just really wanted a title, and liked the aesthetic of this poem. I was surprised to see, in the end, how well the two came together in my thoughts. The other poem referenced in here is Wallace Stevens' "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird." It... it just fit, and I couldn't stop thinking about it while I was writing. Felt weird not to include it.

My first draft of this entire fic was ~5000 words (shorter than this chapter!) and basically just a fun little exploration of a 'what if.' Maybe 5% of what's in this chapter was in that first draft. It got super out of hand but I'm really happy I was able to dig in further and make a hardier story out of one little idea. I kept the ending pretty open but, ah, I have my own thoughts about what would happen :)

As always thanks to everyone who read, commented, and favorite'd this fic. It means a whole lot to me, especially because this is a rarepair I love dearly but don't see represented much. This is also the first multichapter fic I've finished! How wild!


End file.
